


Not That Simple

by lasciviousWildheart



Series: Infinity Mechanism [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Comfort Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Night Terrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:06:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8221660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasciviousWildheart/pseuds/lasciviousWildheart
Summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1IujGUqyvI&index=13&list=PLYDHdUphc_14gFPrW-_Bz3W_wJe2CW0G3&shuffle=553
This one is a Dredge song. The high-key anxiety feeling of it along with the intense comfort of a relationship feels fitting, to me. 
Jake has a bad nightmare that dredges a lot of bad feelings up. Luckily, Dirk happens to be staying over this night.





	

Black sky, deep green grass field. It was the first time Dirk and Roxy had ever even seen grass, likely, but they scarcely noticed. There were more interesting things about.  
Dirk was presently enjoying many firsts: His first human touch. His first human voice, unlike his own, without the buffer of a transmitter. He was enjoying both in abundance, actually, along with his first being violently shaken down for information by one of his best friends.

Jane was stronger than he’d guessed, or maybe sheer terror and confusion was empowering her questions. Dirk rattled off answers distantly and autonomously, trying to reassure her. 

“But...how? I mean, Jesus, Dirk. What did you even do?” She asked. Dirk felt a flash of frustration hit him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fill her in--she was his best friend, and if he was to be truthful, he enjoyed the idea of filling everyone in on how damn awesome he was. It was just…

It was just hard to concentrate on the details with Jake right there, staring at his head. He’d stopped shaking it--Dirk could tell his attention was at least halfway on their conversation. But his eyes wouldn’t leave it. The head Dirk had just sent him. The head he’d kissed. To save him. To save all of them. Dirk wasn’t sure what to make of it but his lips felt kind of dry and his heart was beating pretty quickly. Maybe it was the aftershock from all that action. He didn’t think so, though. 

But it didn’t stop him. He’d been asked a question, and Dirk Strider was nothing if not thorough. “The Red Miles got you and Roxy. Skipping over some details, I used a window into the void to hop over to Roxy’s and kissed her corpse so her dreamself would take over. Then I used my sendificator, which could send things to exact locations in the past, to kill myself and send Jake my head. He kissed it, which let my dreamself take charge. Then I kissed your corpse and me and Roxy blasted out of Derse to catch you, and through time shenanigans involved with Jake’s frog temple we all arrived just in time to wake him up and ensure he would kiss me in the first place, completing the time loop. Then we entered. Now we’re here.” 

A beat of silence. Jake and Jane were both staring at him now. A little further away, Roxy enjoyed the show. Dirk could tell she was overwhelmed--all her friends suddenly in reach like this. He could relate. Jake’s green eyes looked right at him and even through his shades he felt...something. A tightening. 

“So the AR wasn’t lying, then. That...all of that was, like. Your plan?” He said, his voice devoid of its characteristic cheer or overwrought splendor. Jake didn’t feel angry, exactly, though. Instead he was...curious. And something else. Hurt? Disappointed, more like. Something hollow and sad yawned in Jake’s heart just as that tightening thing in Dirk’s chest started to feel like iron, but it didn’t seem to show on either of their faces. 

“Not exactly,” Dirk answered, amazed his voice sounded so neutral and cool despite how nervous he was. “I just tried to account for a lot of variables, but I never expected something like the Miles. Once the shit hit the fan I was pretty much improvising. I’d have preferred to keep our extra lives, for one thing, but now we all spent those.” He admitted.  
“Oh. I see.” Jake said. He wasn’t really looking at his head anymore. Dirk took it from him, gently, and stashed it in his sylladex. Less immediately disturbing, maybe, but still fucking weird. Jane followed their exchange attentively. Roxy was starting to walk over. “So the whole...sending me your head thing, and AR talking about kissing and our...our love and stuff,” the overwhelmed, pained expression it brought out of his face, the defensive hunch of his shoulders--those nearly killed Dirk inside.

He hoped his regret showed in his wince,even through his glasses. “Ok, I don’t have a fucking clue WHAT the AR said, but you should probably just ignore it. In any case, I certainly didn’t want that to be how things went down. Sending you the head was just the first thing I could think of, and I was pressed for time.” 

“Oh. Ok, that sounds sensible.” Jake answered. It did genuinely seem to make him feel better, too. Which made saying the next part easier. 

“Still. I couldn’t have done anything if you hadn’t stepped up. You saved my ass, dog. Thanks.” Dirk said, though what he’d really wanted to say was  
Jake’d eyes widened--he felt genuinely pleased. He let out a sheepish little laugh. “Haha, well, of course! I am a bold man of action, after all. Anytime, bro.” Though what he’d really wanted to ask was 

 

But the questions died before they reached his tongue. He kept trying to look for answers somewhere past his cool guy facade, however. No go. Dirk remained as impenetrable as a stone wall.

Still, what they’d said was enough to produce a different sort of awkward silence. Jane’s heart sank, looking at them as the pointedly looked at each other without looking at each other. Waiting for something. “I’m...going to go get Roxy up to speed,” she said, just cheery enough that if they noticed she was upset, they didn’t think it warranted alarm. She walked off.

The world teetered on it’s axis under Jake and Dirk’s feet. It was obvious, even without saying anything, that they were on the brink of something...something else. Maybe something really excellent. If only one of them would just say it first. And yet…

“So. AR said something about love?” Dirk asked, his voice unshakeable and controlled in a way that surely suggested he was totally unphased by all this. Definitely.

“Um. Yes. Also I think he wants to be called Lil Hal now. Like from the movie, but also like your puppet friend.” Jake responded, his voice too loud and too fast but surely passable as the vocalizations of an adventurer with the flair for the dramatic. Surely. 

“Oh. Well, that’s interesting, I guess. It’s good if he’s branching out.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah.”  
“...”  
“Sorry about that. The love stuff, I mean. That must have sucked. I’m sure he was just fucking with you. Or with me. Or both of us.”

 

“Where the AR--...Where HAL is concerned, I never cast that into doubt, buddy.” 

That actually got a laugh out of Dirk, and Jake felt something in his heart fucking blossom. Ok, then. So Dirk was here now, right here in person, and Jake could still make him laugh. That was swell. That was actually downright aces. Maybe this was salvageable? There was still something sad in his heart, still something left sore by the jarring turn things had taken. But maybe that was fine in the end. 

“It was pretty overwhelming, I’ll say.” Jake admitted. “It didn’t suck as much as thinking you were dead, though. That scared my fucking knickers off.”

“Yeah. Well. The dying part was pretty scary for me, too.” Dirk said, but it didn’t sound like a confession--just like a bland statement of fact. Jake tried to gauge his sincerity, but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t take the sentence and make it feel real. Figuring Dirk out was easier when he had static text to work off, but now the words were only memory, gone too fast. 

“Was it? Really?” He ventured.

“Yes.” He stated. Dry and matter of fact. “Like I said, you really pulled through for me.” Ok that was pretty nice to hear, as a matter of fact.

Dirk leaned against the crumpled wall and sat against it’s edge, let his hand rest along it. Jake followed his lead, sitting next to him. Their hands were so close it felt unreal. The same hands they’d used to talk to each other for all that time. Years. A lifetime. A lifetime that was over now, apparently. Jake thought about his island for a moment. It was...gone now? Could he get back? He didn’t think so, but Dirk was right here, and the girls were too, and the trade off seemed worth it. 

“So um...uh. Aw jeez it’s getting awful stuffy here.” Jake said, pulling at his shirt’s neckline. Dirk felt like he was moving in slow motion, staring at Jake sideways. He couldn’t pull his eyes off him. Thank god for his shades.

It was time to cut the chase before he lost his grip completely, Dirk thought.

“Jake.”

Jake shot up comically, adorably, like a steel rod had gone up his spine. He looked right at him, though. “Yeah?”

“The truth is. I didn’t plan that stunt, and the AR was definitely blowing everything way out of proportion for whatever the fuck it’s purposes are, but…”

Holy shit. Jake couldn’t quite tell for sure, but he thought Dirk might actually sound...nervous? It was tough to say, but it still made his heart beat even faster. 

A memory from his dream a few hours ago, but it felt so much older. Was so much older. And now it was actually happening, it seemed. Jake couldn’t help noticing for some reason the memory felt even older than it should, whatever that even meant. And were romantically climantic moments normally meant to feel quite this dreamlike? It made him feel nervous--whether it was from Dirk or something else he couldn’t quite pin down, however...

He gulped. “But…?”

Something caught in Dirk’s throat, and it came as a relief. At this point, everything, anything that made Dirk tip his hand, show his cards so to speak was welcome. But his voice sounded as smooth and stable as always when he spoke.

“But, the truth is, I really do have feelings for you. Like. Romantic feelings. And...if you’re down for it, I’d like to try exploring them. As...boyfriends.”

Something unfair and mean flashed through Jake at the way Dirk said it. Coolly and distantly, like he had no investment in the outcome. It was just so damn easy for him, so effortless to say all this. For a second he remembered what the Dirk in his dream had said. Limitless potential and the power of belief. Maybe Dirk didn’t even feel what he was saying? Maybe he was just saying it because Jake wanted him to say it. Because he’d Believed he would, eventually.

Bittersweetly, Jake discarded the thought. If this was just him living out a fantasy, it was a piss poor one. Hal wouldn’t have been so pushy and overbearing, for one thing. Dirk and the others wouldn’t have died. Dirk wouldn’t be wearing his stupid glasses, and maybe he’d even smile at him or something. No, this was real, and as muddled and awkward as reality was there was comfort to draw from that. 

“...If, uh. If I didn’t totally scare you off with that overly dramatic spectacle and putting you in that awful position and all that stuff, I mean.” He paused. Hesitated. 

 

“If you’re not down for it, it’s cool, dog.” He added, his voice sounding like it could almost be strained. Jake had dawdled too long, and now Dirk was worried. It was amazing how quickly that emotional stonewall had crumbled, and it made Jake feel better, even if he’d preferred it crumble to reveal a smile or maybe a flirty joke, instead of a lot of fear he’d get rebuffed. At least he knew he really did mean it, now. 

“No, no. As a matter of fact, I...I feel much the same way, sport. You’ve always been swell to me and you’re not a bad looker and you’re my best friend and, yeah. If I’m honest I was kind of hoping you’d ask.”  
, his brain added, but it was mean so he left that part out. 

It was well worth the self-control. Dirk finally rewarded him with a little smile--not even a really cool or smug or self-satisfied smile. His eyebrows shot up from behind his glasses like he was genuinely surprised, and his grin seemed genuinely kind of...thrilled. “Really?” he asked, and his voice was small and almost hesitant and suddenly Jake kind of wanted to kiss him again. Properly this time. 

He settled for letting your fingers slip sidewards, his hairy knuckles bumping up between Dirk’s smooth ones. He hoped it wasn’t too forward of him to take them and twine them together--Dirk didn’t move at the motion but he did look down.

“Really.” He said. It wasn’t what he’d hoped for, exactly, but it wasn’t half bad. 

He leaned in but the moment when their teeth should have clashed awkwardly was replaced by a wisping into the dark. 

That was when Jake realized something was wrong. 

In the darkness there was the impression of something enormous and slimy, like part of the black horizon was writhing against itself. Tearing itself apart. Cracks of bright white light exploded, splintering the black and shining rays of vision onto the owner of that movement. 

The thing was ancient and enormous and not meant for human or even god’s eyes. It hurt Jake’s eyes with the shape of it--too many limbs, too many beaks, eyes that were bigger than entire skies. It giggled and chattered in a high-pitch, empty tone, and as soon as he noticed it he knew it was singing in concert. It’s kin surrounded him on all sides, immense and too big and coated in darkness, invisible to his eyes. 

The one that had been exposed by that impossible bright breakage stared right at him. He knew if this was a normal dream he’d have slipped inside one of the bubbles, though he didn’t know if any ghosts were left inside. He’d have gone unnoticed and unnoticing, him and this entity sharing space but not time. 

But something had fluked this time. He’d been too perceptive, seen through too much of the glamour. And now here he was, facing the impossible reality he’d brought to life: he’d broken through the veil and he was on the other side with the big boys, with the movers and shakers, with the gods that Decide. 

He ought to light up, he thought, terrified but dreamily distant. He did not light up, did not summon the feeling of white cotton and feathers waiting in his heart. He couldn’t. He was alone here, and afraid, and monsters were surrounding him. Dirk wasn’t here. He tried to imagine Brain Ghost Dirk was, even that much would make it better, just a little. No go, however. He tried to wake up somehow but that didn’t work either. The thing’s enormous, slow eyes moved towards him in asynchronistic order, it’s flagella writhing silently in no air at all. With intent and focus. Trying to stare. Striving to touch. 

It seemed to get bigger, slowly. As if it were...moving closer. Jake didn’t quite feel his heart speed up, since it wasn’t in his body. But he sensed something new from the horrorterrible motions of the creature. It wasn’t just guaging interest, hunger, desire for death. It was doing something different, something even worse, it was…

Considering him. Taking him in. 

Recognizing him. It pulled out raw pieces of him effortlessly, forced him to relive them as it unraveled and remembered his context, his tiny plot of space in its unfathomable domains of dark. It’s arms outstretched not in threat but in welcome, it’s singsong choir sounding incomprehensible but familiar, their voices warm and lovely and matching a warped twisting of an old favorite song...

...Of his Grandma’s...

All around him he felt eyes dilate horribly and forever in recognition, and he heard their song add up to a terrible promise:

 

 

And then the nothing began to dissolve. He became aware of the sensation of someone violently shaking him, heard “jake” “Jake!” “JAKE!” in increasingly distressed calls. He knew that voice, he craved it, he called out for his Grandma but no that was wrong. Someone who could chase these monsters away, someone who would help him stay sane in the face of that promise, someone---

It was deep purple-blue in his room, the moonlight filtering in from the window they’d cut in above, a stark difference from the endless black-grey-white of the dream. Dirk’s eyes and hair were bright and pale and Jake had just enough light to take in every inch of the fear and worry in them. No annoyance, no judgment, no anger, no disappointment. Too much. That was too much, in the wake of the dream--he wasn’t used to Dirk’s feelings showing so openly, being so clear. 

“Dirk…” he said, head still spinning. He could hardly believe it. He knew it hadn’t JUST been a dream--he could still feel the horrorterrors’ eyes on him, literally infinity miles away though not far enough. But Dirk was here--a bonfire, a sun, a deadly crack of light. Here it’s limbs couldn’t see inside him, it’s eyes couldn’t touch his heart. His eyes welled up with tears and he realized his voice felt hoarse, like he’d been screaming. “Dirk.” He said again, assuring himself this was real with the hoarse crack of his throat on the sound. 

“Jake, jesus, are you alright? You started screaming and flipping the fuck out.” He said, eyes wide and voice genuinely shocked. Jake had a hysterical urge to laugh-- Dirk Strider, ladies and gentlemen, genuinely had no idea what was going on. A show for the ages. “Sorry, uh...if I shouldn’t have woken you up.” He added, and Jake’s heart swooped down in the opposite direction--his heart nearly aching with grateful affection and love. 

He was breathing too fast, but the baritone of Dirk’s voice was like a blessing washing over him, an anchor bringing him crashing down to his little room. It used to take hours for him to stop being terrified after some bad nights, he remembered. At least now he kind of understood what reality meant already. If only he could figure out how to make that feel real, instead of the endless black and that writhing, slimy horrorterror, singing his Grandma’s song. 

“S-sorry old chap. B-b-bad nightmare, is all.” Jake confessed. He turned over, away from Dirk, trying to play it off. “I’ll be b-back to normal in a jif-fy, sorry for the troub-” Wonderfully, Dirk’s strong arms closed around Jake from behind, pulled him close to Dirk’s warm chest. It was only then that Jake realized he was shivering like a lousy goddamn chihuahua, however. His heart was pounding in his chest like a rabbits under Dirk’s forearm. 

“S-sorry. Sorry. Real sorry, Dirk, criminy this must look pathetic…” Jake rambled. He didn’t really have the presence of mind to worry about how it looked, he just knew he probably SHOULD worry about it, but there was no real worrying under the weight of the fear, the way the darkness all around them felt weighty and purposeful, the way he could still feel all of that thing’s eyes focused and staring at him across infinite black space. It wasn’t quite fading, and it felt present and purposeful to Jake--full of  
. 

If Dirk was here with him, maybe it could see him. Maybe it could reach him. Maybe Jake was just imagining it, he considered, but the skepticism did nothing to dissuade the incredible weight of those lazy eyes. 

“You don’t need to apologize, and it’s not pathetic.” Dirk cooed, softly. He held Jake closer to him, pressed flush into him. The sensation of Dirk’s dick pressing up into Jake’s rump actually was pretty distracting, Jake realized--not to mention comforting. He was so warm, so unlike the blank no-feeling of floating in the black void. “It’s alright, I get nightmares too sometimes, you’re fine. You’re fine…”

Fuck. That was no good. Jake’s brain was in overdrive, racing and panicked, too many raw fears laid out too plainly by the monster’s touch. _You’re lucky you’re so hot_ , Jane said. _You’re actually kind of an asshole_ , Dirk said. _You’re actually kind of an incompetent burden loser crybaby_ , Jake said, suddenly angry at himself as much as he was terrified. What was there to be so fussy about? He was fine. He was safe. He was-- 

“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I don’t know why you put up with me, I’m so fucking dumb…” Jake said, his shoulders shaking harder. Suddenly it was getting hard to breathe, his chest felt tight and hot and painful. Dirk’s warmth and weight was helping, at least, he thought. Still, he kind of wished he was alone in here--he felt uncomfortable taking care of this the way he usually would have. And it must have been so awful for Dirk, seeing him like this. The eyes in his head swelled with incomprehensible interest. The dark of his room grew heavier with oppressive menace. 

“You’re not dumb.” Dirk answered, firm and flat. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked. He seemed to know his way around this--but then, Dirk knew his way around everything, so that was no shock. Jake let himself push up against his back, the sensation pushing away the terror and the darkness a little. 

Jake didn’t answer. Instead he clamped down and counted his breaths. One. Two. A trick Dirk had taught him, at some point. Not his method of choice when he was really scared but he needed to think for just a second. He weighed his options--keep fighting off this wave of terror the hard way, or tell Dirk the truth. Hope he wouldn’t freak out at him too hard.

“Make love to me?” He confessed, his gasp making him breathe a little hard. His eyes felt so big, and if he looked into the dark he could swear he saw eyes looming--lusii, eldritch, technicolor billiards, vast empty white--waiting. Stalking. Biding their time. 

“What? No. Jake, you’re not thinking straight, you don’t even know if you want that. I’m not going to--”

 

“Oh, like you’ve ever thought straight a day in your life,” Jake spat back. He was dimly ashamed at how harsh he’d sounded, he felt wild and unrestrained and mean and cruel and terrible and so flippin scared. The dark of his room went on forever and he really wanted the light on but he couldn’t imagine either of them moving to the light switch without him losing his mind. 

But Dirk sounded bemused, not hurt, to Jake’s immense relief. “Damn.” He said, sounding genuinely impressed. “I gotta be careful, Jake’s got the blowtorch out. I guess I’m not that worried if you can mouth off wit like that.” 

“I’m serious, Dirk. Please. At least just touch me. Or tell me you won’t be too offput if I touch myself, I just...I used to do it to calm down, I know what I’m asking just…” Jake wrapped his hand around Dirk’s wrist. Dirk resisted. The white-grey horrorterror made a gibbering sort of laugh, awful and resonant. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It was real, it was definitely real and still _looking at him_. Jake whimpered. Jake whimpered. 

“When the monsters were close to the orb I would touch myself,” He bumbled too fast, his breathing shallow and pained. “I’d hear claws or hooves on the walls of my orb and I’d just get so scared, I’d just have to do something to get my mind off it. Sometimes when it was raining I thought I heard them even if I wasn’t actually sure. A lot of times I’d think of you, you holding me or talking to me and keeping me safe and making me feel better.” 

He let the words hang like guillotines. He knew full well this was kind of mean of him, to manipulate Dirk like this, knowing so easily how to plug his strings. But Dirk did seem to enjoy it well enough. His grip around Jake tightened and suddenly Jake was aware of the feeling of Dirk’s heart pounding loud and hard against his back. Comforting. Something twinged between their two thin boxers. 

“I know what I want, Dirk. I promise.” Jake offered. Tears stung his eyes again. God, what if he scared Dirk off? What if Dirk decided he was lying? “I want you. Just...make me feel better, make me focus on you instead of that tentacled fuck. Please?” His voice cracked, damnit he was begging. He tried to imagine the horrorterror was growing disinterested, looking away, but the vacant, solid stare’s image stuck. 

But finally, mercy from somewhere. “Ok.” Dirk said softly--sounding struck. His arm lifted from Jake’s chest and settled downwards. Dirk’s hand slid gently under Jake’s underwear and gently cupped Jake’s balls and dick, already half-hard. “Ok.” He repeated again. “Tell me if you want me to stop.” 

The sensation was heaven itself, as much as Dirk’s other arm tightening around him, holding him close. Jake cried out with--relief? The fear subsided and waned, still on his mind but suddenly not the overpowering thought. The image of the horrorterror grew a little dimmer, somehow. 

“Oh, cripes. Oh, jiminy cricket, Dirk, that’s...that’s aces.” Jake croaked. Dirk couldn’t help the way his heart leapt. This was...unexpected. At this point he mostly understood that Jake wanted him, but this was an entirely new shape of wanting. His hand pushed down and Jake’s boxers slid downwards, onto his thighs. Jake came free under the bedsheets and Dirk took him, gently, and started to stroke up and down. 

Jake whined and pushed up into Dirk’s touch. The feeling of Dirk’s calloused, big hand rolling him open and closed was comfortable and warming and cast away the eyes of that enormous thing in the dark completely--set Jake alight so that he couldn’t even think about it. He was still plenty scared, but at least he could start to convince himself it wasn’t real when it wasn’t burned into his head. His stomach and forehead felt cold and clammy with sweat and he wanted Dirk to encompass him all over, make everything disappear except for them. 

His hand worked backwards and found Dirk’s waistband, yanked down awkwardly and harshly but just well enough to get Dirk loose. He let out a deep groan, his breath tickling Jake’s nape. Jake curled his neck backwards, slitted it under Dirk’s, comforting contact. Their ears felt nice, brushing together. 

His dick felt cold and small in Dirk’s hand, criminally distant like Jake was stretched too thin over astronomical miles. But it was warming and swelling fast under the pressure of Dirk’s hand, and Jake could feel a spiking point in his shoulders like shoulders tensed for decades learning to relax. Painfully and slowly. Tears stung his eyes again, falling sideways. He felt Dirk’s cock press up against the curve of his bottom and that same intoxicating relief washed over him again. Dirk’s soft whine helped, too. 

Quickly enough the horrorterror was barely on his mind but the black shadows of the room and behind his eyes still felt lively and pressing. He wrapped both his hands around Dirk’s forearm, held it tighter against his chest. “Faster,” he asked, and Dirk complied immediately, drowning everything out with his rhythm. 

But his panicked mind went down fighting. The horrorterror banished, it’s inquiries remained, and the voices stayed as loud as ever. Fear of...of life itself subsided. In it’s place, fear of...of…

 

__(You will have no executive authority whatsoever, because you are too stupid. )  
(You will always do exactly what I say, when I say it. You will be obedient, cheerful, mostly silent, and scantily clad. Is that understood?)  
(What kind of man are you?)  
(She has a point there.)  
(Dude, would you quit bawling already?)

Judgment pierced him like a sword through his chest, shame flooding and drowning him. And now here he was, making Dirk help him again. He heard himself say sorry, over and over and over, and Dirk was shooshing and crooning and telling him it was ok, he didn’t mind, but how couldn’t he? Was this all Jake was? Could he never be better? 

“Why would you help me,” He said mournfully, pathetically, pressing up against Dirk anyway because he was selfish, helpless, useless on his own. Except of course when he demanded to be, imposed solitude upon Dirk like a verdict. “I’m nothing but a burden. Everything I do, I just hurt and annoy you, over and over. It never flipping ends.” His voice cracked.

Dirk’s hand hesitated, and Jake felt something fall onto the bed. Dirk’s hand pulled away from his dick, leaving him feeling cold and exposed. He cried out, twisting his head against the pillow. Damnit, stop crying. Stop kicking up a fuss, you crybaby. You troublesome grandma’s boy wuss.  
“You’re not a wuss, or a crybaby.” Dirk noted, soft and gentle, over a slicking sound Jake didn’t quite understand. Then Dirk’s fingers found his asshole and something exploded in Jake’s head, leaving him stunned and dizzy and pressing up into Dirk, awkward angles be damned. Jake fought the urge for his legs to part open--he should be putting a stop to this, Dirk shouldn’t have to deal with his nonsense malarkey, he should--

“I like your malarkey.” He said, tone perversely amused. Jake’s shoulders hitched--he must have been thinking aloud, just then. How long ago had that started? Shit. He wasn’t holding up as well as he’d been hoping he was. Guilt cascaded over him. In his head he thought he saw the stir of a dim flagella, but then Dirk’s long finger slipped inside him and again it was gone. 

“I’m not worth it.” Jake insisted, his deep voice cracking high and shallow. “I can’t be worth it, it just doesn’t add up, it doesn’t. I’m so much friggin’ TROUBLE for you!”

“You’re joking. If anything, I’m trouble for you.” Dirk parried, effortlessly. “I’ve hurt you more times than I can count, let alone know what to do with. I’m the one that can’t just say how he feels ever. Being friends is being trouble for each other, Jake, that’s just another part of being alive. That doesn’t mean you’re no good. It just means you’re worth it.” 

He sounded smart and sure and certain, a convincing fellow, like he understood exactly what was and wasn’t real. The weight of him reassured Jake, like someone explaining a storm to a kid. He remembered long black hair and bony fingers around a plant, around a gun trigger, around his lungs. They were so different from these, but the feeling was similar. 

Like being made safe. Like being taken care of. Jake wished he could enjoy it but failed--the guilt poisoned everything, made him hate himself more with every pulse through his system. Dirk’s hand reached around and stroked his cheek from where Jake’s side was pinning it--awkward and slanted but still the contact was loving and comfortable. 

Dirk added a second finger to the first and it felt wonderful even if too tight, Jake was quickly starting to feel slick and ready inside. Conflicted feelings arose again--Shame and ecstasy, guilt and anticipation, weakness and a calming sense of safety. If only Jake could believe him. If only he understood. 

“Explain it to me, then.” Jake asked. He decided to be brave and ran away from the dark and into a different danger. Into Dirk’s hold, where he could be found wanting. At least here there was a hope in hell of safety, at least here there was a chance--even through the fear making him irrational, Dirk felt like a beacon to peace. If he could bring himself to deserve it. “Tell me why I’m worth it. Explain it like when you explain when a movie is dumb, so I’ll get it. Can you, Dirk? Can you do that?” He asked, sounding wild and desperate. His chest hair tingled and ached where Dirk’s arm didn’t brush. 

Dirk laughed, overwhelmed a little. “You never get it when I explain why a movie is dumb, though. That won’t even work, that’s ridiculous.” He was trying to brush it off.  
Jake wasn’t having it, couldn’t fathom the thought of continuing to believe Dirk actually wanted him if he couldn’t find the words for it now. 

 

Dirk had words for everything--clever words, bright words, words more dense than the bland, charming, empty gratuities their society had passed off as romantic. Dirk’s words were unscripted and unknown and surprising, offbeat and knowing of some working of the universe that felt like a cool, dark ocean or a tomb to plunder.  
Jake wanted those words, the secret ones, the ones about him. He hungered for them like he knew they’d been promised. 

“That’s not true,” Jake protested, tearing at the shallow artifice hastily laid between them. Ravaging it. He twisted up and Dirk’s breath caught as Jake pinned him with his eyes. Jake didn’t realize that the lights weren’t on, or that seeing Dirk’s bright sunset eyes so clearly should be impossible. Dirk was too distracted to catch that it was too dark for Jake’s deep forest eyes to shine so bright. 

“I just pretend that I don’t because it’s more boring that way. You even know that, I don’t know why you pretend otherwise.” Jake said, voice shaky and smooth at the same time, somehow. “I understand all the stuff you say. I’ll understand this, too. I won’t pretend I don’t, this time. I promise.” He said.

Dirk paused--no, screeched to a halt. Talking to Jake always felt like a dance, and this was a dip, come at last. He was never totally sure how much Jake listened or understood any given time, though he always had the nagging feeling the answer was everything. But...this. Jake dropping the disguise altogether and running him through with his clear sincerity, unmistakeable and deeply needy. 

It was almost holy, almost more than Dirk could endure. His heart was beating very fast, all of a sudden, and he remembered that technically Jake could do anything. Anything at all. Of course it’d be trivial for him to know exactly what to say to undo him, exactly the sequence of syllables Dirk had always been dying to hear. He was a god, after all.

Jake heard him breathe in. Out. In. Out again. Considering. The seconds turned interminable and the shadows grew dark once again, threatening to take shape, threatening to come after him. Then, finally, Dirk’s voice. Like blessed candles in the hair, humming orange. 

“You’re worth it because you’re fun to be around. You have strong opinions and you like to talk to me about them, even when you get owned because you’re wrong. You like skulls and guns and you talk about them like they’re the best things in the world even when they’re in kind of a dumb context. You believe everything is as earnest as you and worthy of absorption and you never stop trying to make real what’s impossible.” He rattled off, his voice breathless and confessional. “And you make me feel like I’m real. Like I matter to people, and like there’s a way to be happy out there, even for someone like me.” 

Dirk’s fingers came out of Jake’s body and Jake felt something slick and thick press up against him. He whined into his pillow. “If anything, you’re indulging me, and it kind of makes me feel bad.” Dirk confessed. “I was scared a lot growing up, too. That maybe I’d be alone forever. That you’d turn out to just like girls, and it just wasn’t meant to be. I was terrified, frankly, and I still kind of am. All the time. You have to put up with me being annoying on that count pretty frequently, since it’s where my neurotic walls of text come from.” 

 

That actually helped Jake to hear. A lot. There was a logic to what he was saying. It was true, he thought. He tried really hard to think maybe that meant the rest was true, as well. That he did like him, after all. He got mixed results, but Dirk wasn’t done. 

“So for you to wake up and be so vulnerable, and like, want me as...well, as a guy, I guess…? Like you like me exactly how I am, and you wouldn’t have it any other way or you’d rather be with someone else. It...makes me less scared you’ll get tired and leave, in the end. It’s shitty and selfish, I know. I wanted to tell you before we...did this, in case it changes your mind about that. 

“Karkat would be proud of us,” Jake’s mouth joked without thinking about it. But it was to his benefit. It reminded him. That was right--Karkat existed, also. And Dave. They were swell chums, and Jake actually felt pretty certain their enjoyment of him was genuine. His nerves slowed or sped up or short-circuited, allowing his head a moment’s silence. 

Dirk didn’t let the beat linger long, but his voice was almost hesitantly quiet, like it was afraid of being rebuffed. “You have a lot of vision, Jake. You’re not just smart, you’re kind of brilliant. Sometimes you say stuff that leaves me completely at a loss for words, just because of how...how charming you are. You’re severely underestimating your own worth, and you’re severely overestimating the annoyance anyone experiences about your quirks and stuff. We like you. Everybody likes you. You’re awesome.” 

Dirk suddenly quivered, relaxing and tensing all over with the relief and fear of having the confession pulled from him by force. He remembered talking to Jane once about how certain words traded could change things, could break someone, but he didn’t feel like he was breaking. He felt like he was suddenly more alive. 

Jake sympathized, felt a little guilty for forcing it out of him, but if he was reduced to the indignity of needing Dirk so blatantly then surely he could take this much? He had to balance the playing field, after all. How else was he supposed to meet the man in the eye?

Dirk didn’t seem to mind, luckily enough. Didn’t get angry or try to take it back, which would have been the worst thing. 

Jake let the words soak, let them linger. He could feel Dirk pressing against his butt, waiting for permission, for acceptance. His heart raced but it felt slower now, more in control. He could feel Dirk’s heart just under his arm, against his side. Beating like a rabbit’s. “Ok.” he said. Dirk sounded like he’d made sense, like reality still made sense and Jake fit into a coherent part of it. That being with him wasn’t just a terrible mistake Dirk was making over and over. But more importantly than any of that was that Dirk had sounded genuine. “Ok. I think I understand a little better. Thanks, Dirk. Would you...would you mind terribly, taking me now?” 

Jake’s voice quivered on the suggestion, fear and nerves and desire and joy that Dirk liked him--really liked him--leaving him a muddled mess. “Alright, bud. Whatever you want.” Dirk promised quietly, that same shivering tension welling up inside of him. Jake arched up flush against Dirk as his hands stroked Jake up and down, petted his stomach and chin, as he slowly and shyly pressed his head inside. Jake’s leg raised and Dirk’s right arm took it, helping him hold up, keeping him open. Jake whined and felt that knot between his shoulderblades scream in protest against the relaxation in his back. 

Dirk’s hand found his cock again at a new angle, from under his raised thigh this time. Jake cried out at the moist friction, the careful caresses, like he was something dear and precious. The fear disappeared into the distance, broke open like a fever. He felt cold and wet with nervous sweat but Dirk was pushing inside him, forcing him wide and it felt so so so good. He knew just how to angle himself to rub along Jake’s prostate without hurting him and Jake was forced to angle himself forwards to give him better access. He held on tighter to Dirk’s left arm as the right rubbed up and down his iron cock.

Dirk’s love and their pleasure beat all the monsters back, made him stop thinking completely for a moment. 

“I wish I could see you,” Jake confessed. “I think that would make it better, but I don’t want either of us to get up.” Maybe Dirk could just toss something expertly at the light switch? He wanted it so bad, he hoped Dirk could make it possible. Toss something at the light switch, even if it being around a corner made the image kind of a stretch. 

“Shhh, alright, we can work something out. Just stay calm.” Dirk cooed, gently working deeper inside him. He had to be halfway in--Jake’s breath was turning shallow and rushed. “Just focus on the feeling, ok? And then think about the light switch. Think you can turn it on from here. Think that I believe you can do it, because I do, and you should be able to. You’ve done it before.” He continued, laying the argument down like bricks, fleshing out the grist of the possibility in Jake’s head as he worked down the girth his flesh with his hand. Compelling. Calming. Building Jake up until he believed it was possible, not even recognizing he was doing it.

 

Jake knew it would work, because if anything made something less fake, it was Dirk knowing it was true. He did as he was told. Felt Dirk’s hand rub up and down along his dick. Felt his stomach rise and fall at the hot, pulsing stimulation, like a sun was alive in his crotch. Felt Dirk stop pushing in and instead thrust softly in place, inwards and outwards. Slowly. Gently. Just giving Jake something to think about. 

He thought about Dirk’s eyes and how beautiful they were and the room’s lights flicked on. Impossible. Miraculous. But Dirk being right was no surprise, and Jake’s heart swelled with the familiar pride of living up to Dirk’s vision of him. He’d done his job. Dirk’s pale skin was his reward, his arm crossed over Jake’s hairy chest. Jake tossed and pulled their blankets off--twisted back into Dirk’s face to squint down at their tangled up limbs, his legs in Dirk’s grip, Dirk’s balls flopping sideways. Dirk’s dick, just barely visible under his own in Dirk’s hand. He watched and felt at the same time, assuring himself everything about this was real, as Dirk’s cock disappeared from his view and plunged all the way inside him. 

He groaned up into Dirk’s face, nuzzling him. Dirk turned and planted soft kisses on his cheek, his forehead, his nose. Bent lower to meet his lips as he pulled out and rocked back into him. The sensation was enormous--like being plowed into, affectionately. He whined into Dirk’s mouth, tears still slipping out of his eyes but now they were mostly absent of terror, more filled with relief.

Dirk grunted and picked up the tempo quickly. It didn’t take long--Jake felt raw and ravenous and he was pressing as close as he could into Dirk and whispering into his ear, asking for More, More, More. Faster Faster Faster. That’s amazing old chap, Oh lord, That’s right what I asked for. The words egged Dirk on, pushed him forwards, hitching and throbbing inside Jake’s ass. 

Jake hollered when one thrust caught him hard, smacked Dirk’s furry crotch against his bottom hard enough to make a smack. He was so thick and achingly hard, and Jake’s head was filled with him now--his weight, his warmth, his smell, the throbbing of his dick, the beating of his heart. His wild, spiky hair, messy and tangled now.

Jake caught Dirk’s eyes at last, straining and twisted upwards, and both of their hearts stopped. Dirk took in Jake’s need, his desire, stark and desperate. Wanting to find safety and comfort in his arms. Wanting him. Jake absorbed Dirk’s passion, his satisfaction, laid bare and open. Wanting to provide, to be desired and approved of. Wanting him. 

“Jake,” Dirk said, and “Dirk”, Jake answered. Dirk’s shaft slid in and out again in a smooth, pummeling motion, leaving Jake feeling impaled and raw. His cock throbbed in Dirk’s hand, feeling so hot and wet Jake wildly thought it must be covered molten lava like honey. 

“I love you,” Dirk said, and it was short and tight and world-endingly enormous in it’s gravity, the kind of sentence that led to suicide and apocalypse. “Don’t ever forget that. It’s not pity or resignation or belabored acceptance. I love you, you’re my best friend, my main bro, my home dog.” 

Jake was sure there was a layer of irony or two to the wording of the sentiment, but that was decipherable easily enough, and it didn’t dilute his sincerity as he exposed himself for Jake, staring into his eyes with curbed eyebrows and earnest care and wanting more than anything to feel loved back. Jake’s arm wrapped itself around his broad shoulders, got to his hair and pulled him close, into his lips. A few stray tears slipped out as Jake closed his eyes and pressed his lip to Dirk’s. When they couldn’t breathe and had to pull apart, he didn’t open them again. 

“Me too.” he said quietly, but he’d set Dirk’s monstrous neediness free, and it was every bit as demanding as the horrorterror. If softer. Dirk’s hand wrapped itself in Jake’s hair, but he didn’t pull like Jake knew he would have. Instead it nudged, and gently suggested. Dirk knew he wouldn’t enjoy being ordered quite the way he did. The gesture of understanding loosened Jake up, redoubled his certainty, his faith, his sense of the order of his life. 

“Did you say something?” Dirk said, but what he meant was Do I have your heart like you have mine? 

“I love you too.” Jake answered, unwinding and looking up at Dirk with big green eyes, forcing himself to be louder, clearer and more direct. It felt like stretching his body out, somehow, except instead it was the feelings in his heart. “Thanks for taking care of me all the time. And being there when I need it. And being just about the best friend a guy could ever ask for.” He said, trying hard not to curl up, trying to stay latched to Dirk’s widening, swelling orange peepers. The small, surprised pout. The blush under his eyes. The look he gave him was worth braving the nervousness of confessing. 

“You’re the one who takes care of me,” Dirk answered, and when their lips met it was like Dirk passed him-- ( _an image, a feeling, a thought. A memory of a nightmare. Dirk but bigger, Dirk but emptier, in a red hot apartment surrounded by noise and concrete and smog instead of water. Dirk but lonely, neglected and hollow and drowning in pining love. Blue, cyan, forest green. The colors were all he could see, layered over everything in the apartment in overlay. He loved them. He hated them. He wished they would touch. They never touched. He never quite felt them. If he ever did, he'd die on the spot, he thought._ )

He didn’t feel anything because to let anything in would be too much. He remembered Jake, remembered Jane, remembered Roxy, but they were distant and strangers and too far gone. He’d never find his way to them. Not in this lifetime. And it was all down to the kid, the scrawny poser runt--

Their lips pulled free and Dirk’s eyes were watery. Jake was himself again, absorbing and processing this new piece of Dirk’s heart. “I have nightmares too, you know. When they get bad I usually message you, or cuddle up next to you if I’m lucky and you’re close enough. It’s not that I’m any stronger than you. I just kind of shut down and stop feeling anything when I need to deal with that stuff. I look at pictures of us or whatever. You help me deal with all of that, all the time. All the time. I’d be lost without you.” Dirk said, his hand stroking Jake’s head, his other hand stroking his other head, care and friendly comfort swelling from both points of contact. 

Jake saw a flash of a messy room, flooded with knights and trophies. He had no idea who he meant when his brain said ( _Sometimes he would stare into the empty armor pieces. Assemble them together in different orders. Tried to find one that would work to channel a splinter. Another project. Another hope laid futile. But maybe there would be fruit to bear elsewhere--_ ) “Me too,” Jake suddenly said, with conviction. With certainty. The tears that stung his eyes this last time were different, were pleasant, and in Dirk’s he saw them reflected somehow. “I’d be lost without you, too. I wouldn’t have the foggiest how to live with myself.” And it sounded true even though he had no idea why he was so sure of it. 

Dirk shifted and shoved and groaned into Jake’s neck, his legs spread flush along with Jake’s. Jake felt something warm and wet fill him up inside, felt Dirk throb and whine in harsh gasps against him, his hand the only part of him still moving, rubbing Jake up and down in fast strides. 

Jake squeezed his legs a little closer together, increased the pressure. Dirk shouted and pushed in deeper, overly sensitive and raw. The sound of his voice and the last bit of pressure were just what Jake needed, and then he was calling out Dirk’s name in small breaths, cumming in his hand as he tried to maximize the feeling of penetration in his rump. 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to ask Dirk to keep going. He slowed down considerably, but didn’t stop on either end. Instead he let Jake down easily, laying soft kisses all over him in slow, tender paps. Stroking and petting and murmuring, whispering sweet nothings and admissions of affection. The horrorterror was either disinterested or nonexistent after all--it had no power when Jake thought of it, here in Dirk’s arms. 

Dirk softened but didn’t let up, rocking inwards and outwards soothingly. Jake was starting to feel something like normal at last, and Dirk pressed the feeling into him, nurtured it. Slowly he untwined his right arm, let Jake close his legs and push up against him so Dirk could wrap his leg around Jake’s and maximize his leverage. He didn’t stop holding him close, now devoting both arms to the task on top of stroking Jake’s spent, red tallywhacker, rapidly softening but no less pleasant for it. He made sure to keep away from Jake’s head, to keep from overwhelming him, attentive guy that he was. Prince charming. 

“Prince needs to take a break, more like.” Dirk answered. Seems he’d been thinking out loud again. Dirk sounded strained and overexerted. Jake could relate--he knew how intense it got when they got overzealous first hand. “Don’t get me wrong, Jake, I’m happy to do this for you all night, but I seriously can’t keep this up.” 

“That’s alright. I think...I think I genuinely feel better. Just maybe...don’t stop rubbing me just yet?” Jake said. Immediately Dirk collapsed against his back, and he slowly, gingerly pulled out. Jake’s heart warmed taking in how hard Dirk had been trying for his sake. “Thank you. That helped me out a lot.”

“Pleasure was all mine.” Dirk said, all wry sincere humor. Jake could hear the grin in his voice, even if he couldn’t quite see it out of the corner of his eye. His cock pulsed, dribbling, obedient and satisfied in Dirk’s steady, stable hand. “Just go to sleep, English. We can talk about it tomorrow, if you want. I’ll be right here the whole time.”

Jake believed him. A comforting promise. “Yeah, but still...this is so much better than when I usually have nightmares.” He nuzzled backwards, pressing his wet bottom against Dirk’s wetter dong. Dirk’s leg stayed on top of him, curled and resting, anchoring weight. Jake felt like Dirk was a cage or a shelter, encompassing him on all sides. His arm felt strong and thick around his chest again. Jake felt his muscles as he felt himself start to drift in his mind. He wished Dirk could always be this close, when he needed him. Close at hand. 

“‘Love you,” Jake said, distant and sleepy and absent. He’d never thought he’d be able to say that to Dirk, mean it so casually, just a statement of fact. But he could and he did now, and that was good enough. That was as good as anything. It outweighed any fears he could possibly find. 

“Love you too.” Dirk called down, softly, and Jake smiled as he slid back into the dark. Safe, this time.


End file.
